Pitt Place

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  1. Ian Topham says:

    Re: Pitt Place
    The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6 (1900) by Augustus J. C. Hare

    “_Dec. 17._–The Duchess is a most interesting remnant of bygone times. She is so easily put out by any one doing too much, that every one at luncheon was afraid to get up and ring the bell for her, till she was close to the bell herself, when a nervous young man jumped up and rang it before she could reach it. ‘Sir, officiousness is not politeness,’ she said very slowly and forcibly.

    “To young ladies she frequently says, ‘My dear, _never_ marry for love: you will repent it if you do; I _did_:’ and yet she was fond of her Lord William.

    “Mr. Spencer Lyttelton rails at everything supernatural, so we spoke of the story in his own family, and he told us the _facts_ of the Lyttelton ghost, declaring that everything added to them about altering the clock, &c., was absolutely fictitious.

    “‘Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, my father’s first cousin, was at Peel House, near Epsom, when a woman with whom he had lived seemed to appear to him. He spoke of it to some friends–the Misses Amphlett–and said that the spirit had said he should die in three days, and that he believed that he should certainly do so. Nevertheless, on the following day–he went up to London, and made one of his most brilliant speeches, for he was a really great speaker–in the House of Lords. He was not well at the time. On the third evening, his servant, after the custom of that time, was in his room assisting him to undress. When the clock struck twelve, Lord Lyttelton counted the strokes, and when it came to the last, exclaimed, “I have cheated the ghost,” and fell down dead: he must have had something the matter with his heart.’”